I think I said that once before, then lost track of time and never got back to the blog….. This time I hope I’m right.  I’ve made myself a schedule and I’ve been following it very well, getting all kinds of work accomplished including two novels I’ve been working on for years!! I’ve been reformatting the first six books that I wrote – the Brief Histories of the townships of the Old Durham County. Quite a chore – but I’m half way through now. Soon to come from the print shop.  The first three are available now – have a …

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Putting the garden to bed is only one of the fall chores around here, but it is by far the most important. This morning I harvested the last of the green beans and tomorrow I will likely take down the two monsters (see the previous BLOG for a photo of them!) and clean out those two corners of the beds.  There are still tomatoes on the vines in bed #3, and the frost doesn’t seem to be bothering them, so I think I’ll leave them a few more days – my windowsill in the kitchen is already full of almost ripened …

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The only problem with promising to blog every week, is the list of subjects to blog about. I don’t have one, I must admit. I suppose I should start with a recap of the summer so far – gardening (what’s new?), and more gardening! And of course, The Belly-Fat Buster Cookbook that I wrote about last time. While the veggies were silently growing we did a lot of site improvements here on our mini farm – that’s what I call our small postage-stamp lot in Bowmanville, I guess because we grow so much in our backyard. We pulled down the …

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Dateline: Orillia We attended the 41st Annual Scottish Festival. We have been attending this festival for about 5 or 6 years now. The colour party, or part of it, from the Bowmanville Legion Branch 178 marches with the Pipes and Drums of Canada, a mosaic of pipers and drummers pulled together from all across Canada. This all started a few years ago when there was a chance to go to Scotland with this particular group and play all over the country. A few of the Bowmanvillers went up every month to Orillia to practice with the band – well, the …

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Believe it or not, it is almost apple season! In just a few weeks the old Heritage summer apples will be ready. These include: Red AstrachanEarly JoeEarly HarvestLowland RaspberryPrimateSummer RoseSweet Bough and…Yellow Transparent Throughout July and August these varieties will ripen and will be ready for picking, each coming ripe at some point during these two months. If you are foraging, as I do, you will need to go out every weekend during the summer so you don’t miss these delicate apples. Some of my readers may be wondering just where to look for these tasty treats. Most often, summer …

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Here we are halfway through June and I’m just now getting around to posting another message on this blog. It’s odd, really… at the beginning of the year my calendar was absolutely empty, but I have been so busy these past few months that my head is spinning! This time of year the garden takes priority over a lot of things when it isn’t raining, even priority over blogging !!! Guess I ought to catch you up with June’s comings and goings so far… The first weekend we were away to the Ontario Genealogical Conference at Guelph. Great weekend! Met …

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Lots to talk about today….. an update on the evening with Peter Klose to start with. After Peter’s presentation we were able to gather other information. What was listed as the Ivory Woollen Mill turns out to have been the Wilmot Tannery – a close look at an old map gave us the correct information. After hearing Peter’s presentation, the Society has decided to have the site checked with Ground Penetrating Radar – GPR for short. We will start fund-raising for that shortly. Well, spring is finally here in Bowmanville. The forsythia bloomed the other day, and Saturday, while we were …

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Every now and then I have a couple of hours where I can get back to things like THE BLOG! Last time I told you about an up-coming speaker at the Historical Society, Peter Klose, who would tell us about the abandon cemeteries in the area and about the mysterious grave of Lovel and Aurilla Beach. It was a pretty good evening. Unfortunately Peter’s day wasn’t all that charming. He spent the day at the Vet’s office with a sick cat (He runs Jungle Cat World) who had damaged the ligaments in his leg trying to do the things that the …

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So much for a weekly blog! Just so much going on in this area, and of course, I have to be in the thick of it! Much of my time is taken up with the Newcastle Village and District Historical Society. We have a very vibrant board the last couple of years, and there’s always something happening and I just have to jump right in the middle of it! I will give them a plug… April 10th is Speaker Night (there’s another Speaker Night in October, too, but I’ll tell you about that closer to the date). This spring we …

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